For a city with a moratorium on murals, the art form managed to be in the public eye in 2011. Street art took its place alongside traditional works, vintage works were restored, policy and enforcement were being questioned–all while ordinances that stopped new mural works from going up on private walls were being reviewed.

If you are not saddled with year-end list fatigue, here’s a timeline of some mural stories from the year.

Read more: KCET Departures

L.A.’s murals are believed to outnumber those in every other city in the world with numbers ranging in thousands. With influence from the punk, hip hop, and skate scene a new street culture was born that fueled a new generation of artists. Artists like SABER, SWOON, KID ZOOM, ROA, HOW & NOSM, KOFIE, D*FACE, CR, RIPO, INSA, BECCA, Thank You X, LADY AIKO, JR, and Shepard Fairey having all tattooed L.A. with murals that redefine the word “graffiti.”

Read more: Frank 151

Please join us for a very special evening at Known Gallery with LA City Planner, Tanner Blackman for an update and group discussion on LA’s potential New Mural Ordinance.

Immediately following Tanner’s update, we will be discussing public art, murals, and community expectations for the new draft ordinance to be presented to City Council for approval.The discussion will feature Isabel Rojas Williams, Executive Director the Mural Conservancy of LA and Daniel Lahoda as Founder of the LA Freewalls Project. The discussion will be moderated by Piper Severance, Manager of SaberOne Studios.

This discussion is imperative to anyone who is working in the streets, or interested in Public Art. Please come and make your voice heard!

“Muralist are taggers,” he said about an investigation on a graffiti-influenced work on a wall in downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District.

Detective Mike Thibodeaux heads up a high-profile detail for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department that targets graffiti and vandalism along rail lines. He spoke to me last week about “Cream of the Crop,” a recently completed piece by the Melbourne, Australia graffiti team duo, Dabs and Myla. It shares the rear wall of the Arts District based Neptune building with a separate piece by New York graffiti artists How and Nosm.

The two crews, who have an international following, were approached by LA Freewalls, a program of outdoor installations curated by Jet Set Graffiti’s Daniel Lahoda. Starting in 2009, the Arts District has become its outdoor gallery showcasing graffiti and street art influenced works.

The body of work started with a wheatpaste by Shepard Fairey and has since garnered attention from the national press. It also placed Lahoda on the radar of authorities who monitor illegal tags.

“I always get permission from the owners of the building,” explained Lahoda, who posted a letter to his website protesting the Sheriff’s Department inquiry about LA Freewalls, and maintains he is attempting to find a way for work to be produced.

When I asked Thibodeaux how a commercial building in L.A. city limits falls under the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County, he declined to comment further due “to the ongoing investigation” and needing clearance from a commanding officer. He added that he stands on his track record with similar cases. Then, perhaps hoping to soften his original statement, clarified an earlier statement: “Well, some taggers want to be muralists.”

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